News: 26 March 08
Pacific Island family study gets a five-year funding boost
A landmark Pacific Island families study that has been providing comprehensive information to help improve the health and wellbeing of this diverse community of New Zealanders is getting funding for five more years.
The Foundation? for Research, Science and Technology is investing a further $3,750,000 in the study, being done by researchers from AUT University (Auckland University of Technology) and the only longitudinal research programme of its kind in New Zealand.
The study has followed a cohort of around 1000 Pacific children and their families during the first eight years of each child’s life. The aim is to provide information on the health, cultural, economic, environmental and psychosocial factors considered to be important influences on child health and development and family functioning.
Previously, the Foundation had invested more than $2 million in the study, which had enabled AUT to attract additional research funding.
Foundation chief executive Murray Bain says the study is of considerable importance and provides valuable data.
“It is great to see it continuing,” he says. “We have doubled our investment in the study, which will enable it to track the children in it through their transition to adolescence”
AUT research co-director Professor Janis Paterson says the study’s findings have been providing Pacific communities, policy makers and health and social providers in the public and private sectors with important health and psychosocial information.
“Public health interventions and prevention programmes can now rely on evidence-based recommendations, with potential to save significant health dollars,” she says.
The results are also assisting with effective planning and service delivery, lowering social costs and developing greater potential for Pacific communities to make a meaningful contribution to New Zealand society and economy.
“The findings contribute significantly to the achievement of government goals and equip Pacific groups with tools to improve their outcomes and lobby for change,” says Professor Paterson.
This is the first time such comprehensive information on Pacific Islanders has been gathered. The study has gained international recognition for retaining around 1,000 children of the 1,398 initially recruited into the cohort and provided connections with the Pacific community which was previously considered a difficult-to-reach group for researchers.
“This is the first longitudinal Pasifika study in New Zealand. The researchers have developed close and collaborative links with Pacific Island communities to provide unique and robust international data,” says Foundation Strategy Manager Nedine Thatcher.
“This ground breaking study is also providing a cascade of scientific achievements, including successfully keeping so many of the children in the study group over the six years,” she says.
The cohort was drawn from children born at Middlemore Hospital in 2000 and researchers have been working closely with them ever since. Pacific peoples represent almost seven percent of New Zealand’s population and are over-represented in many adverse health and social statistics. Prior to the study there was little culturally specific information on which to base public health and social intervention programmes.
Children and their parents or primary caregivers have been regularly interviewed and a child assessment programme has been completed, gathering data relating to each child’s height, weight, and language development. Information on the children’s nutrition and physical activity is also being collected.
Professor Paterson says the study is already resulting in improved immunisation services for Pacific children, greater emphasis and education on diabetes, obesity prevention and healthy eating patterns, and the appointment of New Zealand’s first Samoan lactation consultant to work with breast feeding mothers. Data relating to high rates of glue ear infection is feeding into the debate on ear check screening programmes for two year olds.
While the study is providing valuable information on Pacific Islanders, Professor Paterson says it is also achieving other significant spin offs, such as a new platform of Pacific Island researchers who have joined the project. Researchers are hoping to extend the study and continue monitoring the children as they move into adolescence.
The Foundation? for Research, Science and Technology is investing a further $3,750,000 in the study, being done by researchers from AUT University (Auckland University of Technology) and the only longitudinal research programme of its kind in New Zealand.
The study has followed a cohort of around 1000 Pacific children and their families during the first eight years of each child’s life. The aim is to provide information on the health, cultural, economic, environmental and psychosocial factors considered to be important influences on child health and development and family functioning.
Previously, the Foundation had invested more than $2 million in the study, which had enabled AUT to attract additional research funding.
Foundation chief executive Murray Bain says the study is of considerable importance and provides valuable data.
“It is great to see it continuing,” he says. “We have doubled our investment in the study, which will enable it to track the children in it through their transition to adolescence”
AUT research co-director Professor Janis Paterson says the study’s findings have been providing Pacific communities, policy makers and health and social providers in the public and private sectors with important health and psychosocial information.
“Public health interventions and prevention programmes can now rely on evidence-based recommendations, with potential to save significant health dollars,” she says.
The results are also assisting with effective planning and service delivery, lowering social costs and developing greater potential for Pacific communities to make a meaningful contribution to New Zealand society and economy.
“The findings contribute significantly to the achievement of government goals and equip Pacific groups with tools to improve their outcomes and lobby for change,” says Professor Paterson.
This is the first time such comprehensive information on Pacific Islanders has been gathered. The study has gained international recognition for retaining around 1,000 children of the 1,398 initially recruited into the cohort and provided connections with the Pacific community which was previously considered a difficult-to-reach group for researchers.
“This is the first longitudinal Pasifika study in New Zealand. The researchers have developed close and collaborative links with Pacific Island communities to provide unique and robust international data,” says Foundation Strategy Manager Nedine Thatcher.
“This ground breaking study is also providing a cascade of scientific achievements, including successfully keeping so many of the children in the study group over the six years,” she says.
The cohort was drawn from children born at Middlemore Hospital in 2000 and researchers have been working closely with them ever since. Pacific peoples represent almost seven percent of New Zealand’s population and are over-represented in many adverse health and social statistics. Prior to the study there was little culturally specific information on which to base public health and social intervention programmes.
Children and their parents or primary caregivers have been regularly interviewed and a child assessment programme has been completed, gathering data relating to each child’s height, weight, and language development. Information on the children’s nutrition and physical activity is also being collected.
Professor Paterson says the study is already resulting in improved immunisation services for Pacific children, greater emphasis and education on diabetes, obesity prevention and healthy eating patterns, and the appointment of New Zealand’s first Samoan lactation consultant to work with breast feeding mothers. Data relating to high rates of glue ear infection is feeding into the debate on ear check screening programmes for two year olds.
While the study is providing valuable information on Pacific Islanders, Professor Paterson says it is also achieving other significant spin offs, such as a new platform of Pacific Island researchers who have joined the project. Researchers are hoping to extend the study and continue monitoring the children as they move into adolescence.